126 Gallery: 01/02/2011

28 Feb 2011

'Wishful Thinking'. An evening of 16mm film.

126 Gallery in association with the Glucksman Gallery, Cork, presents: 'Wishful Thinking'

Wishful Thinking, curated by Matt Packer from The Lewis Glucksman Gallery, University College Cork, is a travelling programme of selected 16mm film by contemporary international artists: Luke Fowler, Jaki Irvine, Ursula Mayer, Rosalind Nashashibi, Roman Ondak, João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva, Deborah Stratman, and Moira Tierney.

Borrowing it...s title from the common phrase to describe an optimistic and ever hopeful outlook, Wishful Thinking presents artist’s films that look beyond the surfaces and circumstances of the world as we find it. Whether by casting into the future, back to the past, or by re-approaching things that are all too familiar, the selected artists employ the particular characteristics of 16mm film to reshape our experiences of time through moving images.

Matt Packer is Curator of Exhibitions & Projects at Lewis Glucksman Gallery, University College Cork, where he has curated exhibitions including 'School Days: the look of learning' (2010-11), 'Grin & Bear It: cruel humour in art & life' (2009), 'Getting Even: oppositions & dialogues in contemporary art' (2008). He studied on the Curatorial programme at Goldsmiths College, London, and is a current member of IKT, the international association of curators of contemporary
art.

The Lewis Glucksman Gallery is a cultural and educational institution that promotes the research, creation and exploration of the visual arts. Wishful Thinking has been developed by the Glucksman to enable wider access to contemporary artists’ film and curatorial models of programming.

Image courtesy of: Roman Ondak, gb agency, Paris, Janda gallery, Vienna and Johnen gallery, Berlin.

14 Feb 2011

James Brooks - Staged and Screened - Photos

Some snaps from our current exhibition by London based artist James Brooks. It's a really strong show that I think has cleared out and calmed down the space aesthetically after our last few shows which were visually quite busy. Come down for a look!

A shot from before the install began - the space is newly opened up again after the previous four shows made use of a wall to divide up the gallery.

Board member Siobhan applying the finishing touches to our new vinyl window sign!

James Brooks

'Reversed Performance'

James Brooks
'The Third Man'
2011
text projection/ b n w/ loop
1 minute 36 seconds

'The Third Man' (detail)

Installation views

James brooks
Seating plans of 7 'Off' Broadway theatres
2010
Pen on graph paper
29.7 x 21 cm (each)

Board members Siobhan McGibbon and David Finn - hard at work!

4 Feb 2011

James Brooks - Staged and Screened

126 presents:

STAGED AND SCREENED

James Brooks

The exhibition utilises high and low cultural sources from– cinema, theatre, music and television as departure points to produce a series of works in - drawing, video, print and audio. The work explores the performance-based nature of the source material, through employing processes which forefront ideas concerning time, duration and visibility, along with an audience’s relationship to Art production.

Staged and Screened in part, attempts to spotlight an audience’s role within an auditorium or public space: where to sit or stand, the etiquette of appreciation and participation- with reference to Bertolt Brecht’s writings on the subject, along with the more recent analysis within Nicolas Bourriaud’s publication Relational aesthetics. Brooks’ interventions attempt to reaffirm the viewer’s physical position in time and space as an important component, akin to Walter Benjamin’s ideas on the importance of a physical encounter with a work of art.

All the pieces in the exhibition operate with a strong sense of internal logic in relation to the source material. These ‘slight to laborious’ interventions of altering the aesthetics of the speciﬁc information are an attempt to forefront a particular aspect or observation- from the whimsical to the austere. One part of the exhibition presents a series of 31 audience seating layout drawings of New York City theatres- Seating plans of 24 ‘On’ Broadway theatres and Seating plans of 7 ‘Oﬀ ’ Broadway theatres. By presenting the crowd or audience as the artwork, Brooks is attempting to question the 20th century convention of cultural consumption by playing with an intentional disorientating inversion. Continuing the analysis of an ‘active’ or ‘passive’ engagement of an audience, the audio work- Absent friends edits out the narrative and visual content of a generic episode of the American TV series- Friends, leaving just the sporadic punctuation of canned audience laughter for its duration, which is synthetically utilised in the show’s production as a device for keeping the tempo of the sitcom. Furthermore, Brooks’ video piece- Reversed Performance appropriates the 1970’s Film – Performance, starring Mick Jagger, then at the height of his fame, in a semi-acting/ real life role. By re-ﬁlming the rewinding visuals of the thriller from the reverse of a domestic television, the narrative content of the ﬁlm is lost and thus becomes an abstract light presentation, akin to music concert lighting projecting out into the audience from a stage position.

Furthermore, geographically the location of 126 in Galway is conceptually of interest to this body of work. The gallery- in turn exhibition, on the West coast of Ireland is across the Atlantic from the United States of America and more speciﬁcally New York City. Thus, this addresses on a larger cultural and geographical scale the notion of who is the symbolic ‘actor’ and who is the ‘audience’ in this particular exhibition scenario.

James Brooks was born in Devon, England in 1974. He completed his MA in Fine Art at Chelsea college of Art, London and his BA in Fine Art with 1^st class honours at the University of Plymouth. To date, he has shown in International spaces in: Paris, Frankfurt, Norway and New York, along with shows in London at: Tate Britain, Seventeen, Domobaal, Arcade, Monica Bobinska gallery, Trinity Contemporary, and Riﬂemaker. Furthermore, he has curated a number of Arts Council funded groups shows on drawing in London and Paris, along with delivering a paper on the future of Contemporary Drawing at the National gallery in London. He lives and works in London.

Further information at: http://www.jamesbrooksdrawing.blogspot.com

3 Feb 2011

Mind the gap...

Ok, after something of a lapse in the upkeep of the 126 blog (it seems to have been about a year?!), we're back in action! We hope to update this regularly with a variety of content from different contributors, covering a variety of 126 events, other goings on in Galway and the wider art world, and other general fluff that accumulates in our minds.
It promises to be enlightening so pop in once in a while!

1 Feb 2011

126, 'Out of a Box' 4th Annual Members Show - Some snaps....

Here's a few images from our recent members show. These are just the images I had to hand so apologies to those whose work aint featured here, I'll remedy that asap!